Swifts inhabit the air as few other organisms do. This talk is an account of an attempt by an earthbound man to follow them there: on their migration routes to and from Africa, their winter travels, dodging African storms and hunting insects that spring up with the rains, and in their brief summer stay in the skies and eaves of Oxford
Output type: Video
Joe Roman dives deep into the critical role animals play in shaping our world, drawing from his book Eat Poop, Die: How Animals Make Our World. Discover how animals are essential to nature recovery and biodiversity, acting as key players in the nitrogen, phosphorus, and carbon cycles. Roman highlights fascinating examples, such as seabirds that helped create a thriving grassland ecosystem on a volcanic island in Iceland, and the important research on nutrient movement by feeding and fasting whales. As global wildlife populations face unprecedented threats, Roman emphasizes the importance of conservation efforts, rewilding native species, and restoring ancient nutrient pathways for healthier ecosystems.
With nearly fifty years of experience in nature conservation, John Payne emphasises that despite the well-known challenges of habitat loss, deforestation, poaching, and climate change, the true issue is acknowledging the inevitable trajectory of endangered species toward extinction. Effective, species-specific management interventions are critical for sustaining viable populations
Achieving meaningful progress in nature recovery, conservation, and biodiversity protection demands more than technological fixes – it requires addressing the social, cultural, and political dimensions of environmental challenges. In this thought-provoking panel discussion, leading experts explore how integrating social sciences such as geography, anthropology, sociology, psychology, and economics can provide transformative solutions to the climate and biodiversity crises.
This seminar highlights the importance of fostering human-nature connections and embracing diverse perspectives, including Indigenous, community-led, and place-based knowledge systems. With insights from renowned academics like Professor Patrick Devine-Wright (University of Exeter), Dr. Beth Brockett (Forest Research), Professor Karen Jones (University of Kent), and Dr. Eric Kumeh (University of Oxford), the panel delves into innovative, inter- and transdisciplinary approaches that promote equity, well-being, and justice for both people and the planet.
Organized by Dr. Caitlin Hafferty and moderated by Professor Michael Winter OBE, this event emphasizes actionable solutions to the interconnected crises of biodiversity loss, climate change, and social inequality. Watch to uncover how collaborative, integrated approaches can create lasting impact for sustainable futures.
The headlines and statements that come out of COP16 rarely provide the full picture of what has occurred. We are lucky enough to have our Oxford Delegation deeply involved in participation and observation of some key moments as well as having off the record conversations with ministers, senior environmental figures and heads of state.
To find out what really happened, and understand more about the overall experience of attending, while hearing an honest assessment of COP 16’s strengths and failures, you are invited to join us for our COP debrief.
Dr. Nicola Ranger, University of Oxford
Abstract:
Eighty years ago in 1944, on the eve of the end of World War II, world leaders came together in Bretton Woods USA with the shared ambition to shape a new global financial and monetary system that would ensure the economic stability and development necessary to avoid future crises and wars. The systems and institutions that emerged – including the World Bank and the IMF – helped shape economic history from then on and presided over an unprecedented period of growth and poverty alleviation around the world. Arguably however, they also presided (and some authors would argue contributed to) a period of unprecedented environmental damage and biodiversity loss. Nature was not on the agenda in 1944. It is today. In this talk – almost exactly two years after the signing of the Global Biodiversity Framework and with only six years to go to meet its 2030 targets – I will discuss how the global financial system needs to evolve to address the combined global challenges of biodiversity loss and climate change. I will particularly focus on the role of the World Bank, IMF and Central Banks. I will propose that the World Bank – as the only global financial institution with the explicit mandate, financial firepower and convening power to address these global challenges – has a particularly important role to play and draw upon both research and my own experience to propose solutions. I’ll argue for why we need to power up our public financial institutions, including reforming our development finance architecture. I’ll also argue for why the IMF and Central Banks need to do more to explicitly recognise the systemic risks from biodiversity loss across their operations and policies. A theme throughout the talk will be on the role of data, analytics and modelling in underpinning and informing action, giving examples from my own research, as well as discuss the new frontiers of research required in order to place nature at the heart of global finance and governance.
Laura Pereira
There is general scientific agreement on the need for transformative change in order to address the systemic poly-crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and growing inequalities globally. However, what this transformative change is and what the future looks like if we are able to achieve it remains opaque. It is important to recognise that there is a plurality of desirable futures that could emerge from transformative interventions; these aspirational futures will look different in different contexts and from different people’s perspectives and knowledge systems. When it comes to detailing how to achieve these outcomes, there is a dearth of scenarios detailing preferable futures for people and nature. In this talk, I will unpack some of the thinking that has gone into trying to address this gap through the development of the Nature Futures Framework. I will also outline some of the capacities that are needed in order to expand and further develop the framework, especially in the context of modelling how to achieve a safe and just future for all life on Earth- a task currently being undertaken by the Transformation Pathways workstream of the Earth Commission.
Laura Pereira is a Professor in Sustainability Transformations and Futures at the Global Change Institute, Wits University and a researcher at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University. She is an interdisciplinary sustainability scientist, having been trained in ecology, law, zoology and human geography. She completed her DPhil in Geography at St Hilda’s College, Oxford in 2012, before working internationally at various institutions including the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, the University of Cape Town, Stellenbosch University, City University of London and Utrecht University. She is interested in the role of futures thinking in enabling transformative change and in developing innovative methods for knowledge co-production in Global South contexts, especially around issues of equity and justice in the construction of pathways to live within Earth System Boundaries. Laura is currently an Earth Commissioner and an expert in the IPBES Task Force on scenarios and models.
The Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery and Biodiversity Network are interested in promoting a wide variety of views and opinions on nature recovery from researchers and practitioners. The views, opinions and positions expressed within this lecture are those of the author alone, they do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery/Biodiversity Network, or its researchers.
Transcript
There is a global biodiversity funding gap, and rapid efforts to mobilise private funding to fill this gap. Attempts to commodify biodiversity to create markets and harness return-seeking investment into conservation have now been practiced for half a century. What have we learned about how or whether private finance can become part of the solution, rather than a systemic driver, of biodiversity loss? In this talk I’ll give a tour of a few biodiversity markets we’ve studied in England and Australia and highlight what we’ve learned about how to make nature-markets work for nature.
Tom Oliver argues that our current fixes for the environmental crisis are often ineffective and even make things worse. Genuine solutions need to go beyond economic and technological ‘sticking plasters’ and require inner change.
Professor. Brian Enquist. University of Arizona
Developing a predictive science of the Biosphere and more powerful tests of biodiversity theories need to move beyond species richness, data driven approaches, and overly parameterized models to explicitly focus on mechanisms generating diversity via size and trait composition. The rise of scaling based theory and trait-based ecology has led to an increased focus on the distribution and dynamics of traits across broad geographic and climatic gradients and how these distributions influence ecosystem function. In this talk I will present a synthesis of trait-based and metabolic scaling approaches into a framework that we term ‘Trait Driver Theory’ or TDT.